God is dead. Women killed him. Finally.

So you may have heard the news that broke over the weekend about Morgan Freeman aka Hollywood face of God who has been accused by 8 women of sexual assault.

It is a terrible blow to imagine that the Voice we all love and the smiling wise character of God he always played has turned to dust in our mouths. His net assets are worth 200 million dollars so of course, he has good lawyers and he has, of course, issued a denial.

As did Bill Cosby initially. And Woody Allen. And Harvey Weinstein. And…….

But you know what? Whatever the eventual outcome, this is a good thing! It seems unfair in case he does turn out to be innocent, but this is lifting the final curtain and peeking beyond the shadows on the walls of our cave.

Plato’s cave is one of the most important and powerful allegories forming the basis of Western philosophy.

Briefly– it talks of a cave where some people are held and they only see shadows on the walls of the cave as things move around outside. One of them finally goes out and sees the actual reality which is casting the shadows. He comes back to tell them and they threaten to kill him for breaking their illusions.

That, in a nutshell, is most people……

We may speak of Feminism and Equality endlessly but Patriarchy and Power will never be amenable to mere ‘modification’. The entire edifice needs to be shattered, the uprooting and rebuilding may take raging ages and cause a lot of collateral damage, but this is a war that has to be won.

This is what Jessa Crispin is saying in her book Why I am not a Feminist. She says we cannot work on the inside to change this structure that imprisons us all. Do not be under any delusion that patriarchy is good for all men either! It is good only for those who are heteronormative or rich or educated or high caste but yes, within any intersection the men will ALWAYS have more privilege than women, and hence the continued need for feminism.

But perhaps the time has come to stop negotiations and begins the demolition.

How long will we just accumulate lists?

Abuse by Church ‘fathers’: Wikipedia actually has an alphabetized list by country. Seriously.

There is also a long list of our own ‘Gurus’ and Swamis in India accused and found guilty of a range of sexual assault, rape and other such cases.

Bill Clinton who inserted a cigar into Monica Lewinsky’s vagina and then said under oath ‘I did NOT have sexual relations with her’.

Rape as a weapon of war: “In the sick logic of war, rape is a highly effective weapon. Its crippling effects can last for years. By creating shame and humiliation it destroys ties within families and communities. It silences and paralyzes. We know it’s a crime. It’s been defined as one in international law. But it’s still happening. And it will continue to happen until we can make the perpetrators truly accountable.”

We see it everywhere, in all ages and spaces. Women have endured witch burning, dowry deaths, female infanticide, violence, rape, abuse.

From the Boko Haram kidnappings: After the 270 they kidnapped so many years ago, they recently kidnapped 110 more. It did not even make front page news.

To our beloved Indian government which refused to criminalize marital rape. “India’s government has rejected calls to outlaw marital rape after saying it could destabilize the institution of marriage and put husbands at risk of harassment.”

Statistics say one woman is raped every hour somewhere in India. Most rapes are by someone known to the survivor. You do the math.

Even the relationship between Brahma and Saraswati is a bit dodgy, to say the least. Did she not exist before him? Or was she his daughter or his consort? Or both?

Kali and Durga as goddesses have always had to rise only to fight evil men.

It is time now to use our energies to not just have to defend and attack but to grow a positive human civilization, not a ‘man’ made one.

As Alexander Solzhenitsyn says “The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.”

Maybe someone like the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo can photoshop the face of Morgan Freeman away from everything and replace it with Toni Morrison or Arundhati Roy or Beyonce or Ruth Baden Ginsberg.

Or better still, replace it with a mirror so we can recognize the power within all of us to harness the good and overcome the evil.

As Nietzche said ‘God is Dead’. He used the phrase in a figurative sense, to express the idea that the Enlightenment had “killed” the possibility in a belief in any god having ever existed.

And I say ‘About time and Thank God for that!’

(72)

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About Suchitra Dalvie

Suchitra Dalvie is the Coordinator for the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership and a Steering Committee Member for CommonHealth. She is a strong believer in women's rights to safe abortion and has worked in promoting the cause for over 10 years. She is also a practicing Gynecologist.